There's something about sitting in a taxi in Chengdu traffic, complete with a driver who has a raspy voice that is the result of a lifetime of smoking that, is so familiarly foreign.
I got in, pronounced my destination slightly different than usual (thanks to a helpful six year old's advice last week), and away we went.
He complimented my Chinese, I did the feigned humility that his generation loves to hear from a foreigner and secretly hoped that there would be no follow-up questions.
His WeChat feed kept lighting up in his 18-friend-strong group chat that he kept speaking into. I understood about a third of what he was saying.
As we sat practically parked on second ring road, he complained about traffic, I said a few words of agreement...we bonded.
Eventually we arrived, and I paid and got out. Once again he told me how good my Chinese is. This time he added 真的 (zhende) for emphasis. 'Really, you speak Chinese very well.' If only he knew.
And that was that.
This is life in the Du.
No comments:
Post a Comment